Cameron got up. “It’s time.”
“Please be careful. Please.”
Cameron ran a finger over her right cheek and felt her overpowering stare reach deep inside him.
“Twenty seconds, sir!” The soldier opened the paratrooper door.
With Marie’s hair swirling in the wind, Cameron put on his goggles, strapped his automatic weapon to his right leg, and silently stared at the fingers of the soldier’s right hand counting from five to one.
“Go, go, go!” the soldier screamed.
Cameron took one final glance at Marie before he jumped into the abyss.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
JUNGLE CREATURES
Ortiz remained still at the edge of the jungle, as did Zimmer and five other members of Mambo who had made it to the rendezvous point two hours earlier. Between them they managed to piece the entire incident together, and had come to the conclusion that of the fifteen original members, six had been confirmed dead, which meant two were still missing.
Everything had been quiet until thirty minutes ago, when a plane had flown over them at what Ortiz estimated was ten thousand feet, perhaps a bit more. Now two helicopters were departing the clearing after unloading two teams of hard-faced soldiers, who definitely looked different from the sentries Ortiz and Zimmer had taken out the night before.
Covered by a foot of wet leaves, Ortiz had scanned the group under the first rays of the morning sun. He’d counted six men in the first team and seven in the second. Thirteen well-armed men against the seven remaining members of Mambo, two of whom had lost their automatic weapons during the explosion and only had their handguns and hunting knives to defend themselves.
The soldiers had jumped off the helicopters, rolled twice, gotten to their feet, and raced for the other side of the clearing, disappearing in the thick jungle.
How did they find us? Ortiz asked himself. He felt confident no one had followed them. The Mambo team had arrived at the clearing before dawn. The chance of someone spotting and following them was small. What if someone had been captured? What if one of Mambo’s missing members had fallen into enemy hands and been tortured to reveal their fallback position? He moved back into the jungle and signaled Zimmer to do the same.
“You think they know we’re here?” Zimmer asked?
“Either that or they think we might be coming this way.”
“There’s too many of ‘em, Tito. How are we gonna get away? They don’t look like amateurs to me.”
“Nope, they sure don’t look like rookies, but neither do we. Don’t underestimate the training we got under our belts. We’re just as good as or better than them.”
“Well, maybe now we still are, since we still have our ammo ‘n’ our individual food supplies, but after a few days we’ll get tired and—”
“You listen to me. We’re playing this one smart. We’ll follow ‘em ‘n’ keep a close eye on ‘em. As long as we know where they are we’ll be all right. The only thing I still don’t get’s how in the hell they managed to get dropped so close to us. Luck? Don’t know, man.”
The rest of Mambo gathered around them. Ortiz scanned the group. All eyes were on him. All depended on him. He was now their leader.
“All right, listen up. We gotta assume those men know we’re in the area. They probably got orders to shoot to kill. Our first priority is not to kill ‘em, but stalk ‘em to make sure we know where they are at all times. I wanna follow their every move and determine the type of gear they got.” He noticed several puzzled looks, and smiled. “We only got one goal, guys, and that’s to get outta here alive. We’ve already accomplished our mission. Now we gotta find a way to get outta this place. Main problem is that we ain’t got no means of comunicatin’ with our people, ‘cept for this radio, which transmits an emergency distress signal. In order to get airlifted, we need two-way comm, and the only way I see of getting one’s by stealing the enemy’s. I’m assuming, of course, that they’re carrying radios. All with me now?”
The puzzled looks disappeared and were replaced by signs of admiration. He had acted like a leader and had earned their respect. Now it was up to all of them to carry through with his plans.
Cameron had heard the helicopters only five minutes after he’d finished untangling his parachute from a nearby tree. He had managed to fold it and stow it away, along with his backpack, in record time, and was now closing in on the troops he’d seen jumping off the helo.
Cameron frowned at first. He felt too old to be doing this, but the professional soldier in him resurfaced faster than he had anticipated. The jungle surrounded him once more. He inhaled deeply, filling his lungs with the smell of trees. It was a somewhat welcome feeling. Perspiration had soaked his shirt. The temperature was already way into the nineties and the sun had barely loomed over the horizon. A light fog hid the ground. It reached his knees. Cameron cruised through it as he approached a section of the jungle where the group of soldiers had disappeared.
He moved in a crouch, keeping his head low and scanning the surroundings as he reached the tree line. His weapon was a sound-suppressed Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine gun, the preferred weapon of the elite British Special Air Service troopers. He kept his left hand under the sound-suppressed barrel unit and his right on the trigger. The telescopic metal butt was not extended, making it easier to handle.
Cameron remained some fifty feet behind the last soldier. They’re good, he reflected, but it was obvious to Cameron that they had never seen actual combat before. Their moves were too “textbook,” too systematic. There was no natural rhythm in their advance. Cameron decided to follow them for a few minutes to see where they were headed. He guessed they would lead him to Mambo.
Cameron checked his wrist-mounted homing unit. It automatically picked up Mambo’s distress signal and indicated its closeness by the frequency with which a small red light blinked. After a few minutes the frequency decreased, which told him he was moving away from the source. Cameron smiled. The soldiers were going in the wrong direction. He stopped and turned around.
Ortiz spotted someone else entering the jungle after the soldiers, someone not dressed like the other soldiers but more like a U.S. Special Forces soldier. The camouflaged fatigues and cap were straight out of the jungle-warfare attire section at Howard Air Force Base. The man had reached the trees, performed a brief scan of the clearing with his weapon, and then gone in among them. The weapon, though, was definitely not a Colt but an MP5 and it was silenced, based on the thick barrel.
He looked back at his platoon. “Tommy, you come with me. The rest of you spread out along the edge of the clearin’ an’ give us cover. Don’t fire unless you got a specific target, an’ only if that target presents imminent danger. Even then, try to take out the target with a knife. Remember, one shot an’ our concealment’s gone. They’ll know for sure where we are. Everybody got that?”
He saw them all nod.
“All right. Give us about fifteen minutes. If we haven’t come out after that, come in. If you hear shootin’ also come in as soon as possible.” He passed the radio strapped to his belt to another soldier. “Hang on to this till I get back. Let’s go, Tommy.”
Cameron smiled when the frequency of the flashing light increased. He was getting closer to the target. It was obvious to him that Mambo — or at least the generator of the distress signal — was on the other side of the clearing, which was still about a hundred feet away. He continued moving toward the edge of the clearing, carefully scanning the trees ahead for signs of sentries. Even though he felt certain that all of the soldiers were moving the other way, there was always the chance of one remaining behind to provide cover for the landing zone.